


we won't break alone

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Past Brainwashing, Talon Lena Oxton, amelie is still kind of an asshole
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 04:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8314225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: Oh, she thinks faintly, remembering the last time she felt anything like this, years and years and years ago, merde.

or: Amélie Lacroix brings in a Talon agent from the cold, and said Talon agent is terrible at gaming according to Hana Song and loves terrible books. somehow that doesn't stop Feelings from happening.





	

**Author's Note:**

> there is a distinct possibility more is going to happen, but idk.
> 
> title is from "Alena" by Alex G.

“You have lost your mind,” says Amélie Lacroix, agent of Overwatch by the name of Widow, bluntly. “And considering that it was already quite lost before, that is an achievement.”

“Haha, you’re bloody hilarious, you should be doing stand-up,” says the ex-Talon agent formerly known as Tracer, now just going by Lena. Three days into her rehabilitation, and already Amélie is reconsidering deciding to take the girl into Overwatch custody. “Look, I’m harmless! Can’t even blink out of here, can’t go anywhere or do anything without you hanging around me like--like--”

“Your guard,” says Amélie. “Which, believe me, _cherie_ , I did not sign up to be.”

“Technically you did, when you brought me in,” says Lena. “I mean, I might just be recalling things wrong, that’s an incredibly common theme, but usually the agent who brings somebody in has to _watch_ said somebody, right?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Amélie sighs. _Mon dieu,_ but even with a sheet of glass between them and her harness heavily modified to keep her from escaping, Tracer still manages to be as annoying as a little rat dog nipping at her heels. “And no, that doesn’t mean you can just ask me to get you things. It doesn’t work that way.”

“Aw, come on!” says Lena, pressing her face up to the glass. This is the woman who fought her to a standstill right after putting a bullet in the head of the most iconic omnic in history. Amélie feels _embarrassed_ for herself. “Please? Just nip down to Nando’s for me?”

“Absolutely not,” says Amélie.

God help her, Lena actually _pouts_.

_Merde,_ this is going to be a long rehabilitation.

\--

**WIDOW:**  
What on Earth is Nando’s?

**WINSTON:**  
wait.  
what?

**WIDOW:**  
Tracer is asking for “a cheeky Nando’s”.  
What is that and why is it cheeky?  
Answer me, it’s been fifteen minutes and all I’ve heard out of you is a crashing noise.

**WINSTON:**  
SORRY, JUST  
Lena’s back, I can’t believe it.

**WIDOW:**  
What.

\--

“It’s a meme,” says Winston, as he and Amélie clean up the mess he’d left behind from laughing too hard. “A British meme, something she was fond of saying sometimes.”

The woman is insane, Amélie very quickly decides, and has been since even before Talon got its hands on her. No wonder she and Winston got along, way back then. “The _English_ ,” she mutters. Morons, the lot of them.

“No, no, it’s a good thing,” says Winston, grinning wide. Amélie should be more scared of that grin than she is, but she’s seen Winston passed out on the couch surrounded by cans of peanut butter and banana peels. She rolls her eyes instead, righting the lamp he’d knocked over as Winston keeps talking: “It means she’s reestablishing her personality and _remembering_ \--”

“And you want to talk to her,” says Amélie, stacking scattered files together.

Winston nods. “She’s my friend,” he says, “of course I want to talk to her. I--I’ve _missed_ her.” There is something raw in his tone that tugs at something inside Amélie, pokes at the healed scar that Gérard’s death left behind.

“Good luck with that,” says Amélie, just a little bit harsher than she means to be. “So far, your old friend seems incredibly resistant to meeting anyone she knew.” She slams a picture frame down on the desk, the one with so many old members of Overwatch grinning at the camera, bright-eyed in their naïveté.

“She talks to you,” Winston points out.

“Because she lives to annoy me,” says Amélie. “ _Bonne mardi_ , Winston. If you need me, I’ll be at the firing range.”

\--

(An interlude, just three or four days ago:

Talon procedure for rogue agents goes something like this: track them down and take them back, by force if you have to. If their resistance proves too troublesome, then it’s best to put them down like a rabid dog. Tracer should know, she’s gone on a few of these operations before.

She just never thought she’d be the _subject_ of one.

How things change in the span of about two weeks, she figures.

She slumps against a wall. Her shoulder is a dull throb of pain, soaking her makeshift tourniquet through with red, and she is so, so _tired_ of running from safehouse to safehouse. She just wants to rest, wants to curl up on a mattress and close her eyes and sleep.

Her heartbeat does not beat very fast, as a result of all of Talon’s experiments. But if it did, it would be beating like a rabbit right now.

She _feels_ like a rabbit, hunted out of every burrow she can find, foxes on her heels and tracking her scent. Or blood trail.

\--that is honestly a depressing thought.

She lets her head fall back against the wall. This safehouse is somewhere on the outskirts of France, so she’s got a day or two before she has to pack up and move again to the next abandoned safehouse.

She gets to her feet. There has to be--This is a safehouse, there’s a medical kit around here somewhere--

\--footsteps.

Tracer freezes in place. No, no, _no_ , Talon can’t have found her, not _now_.

_Get a hold of yourself,_ she tells herself, _and fight._

Easier said than done, with a hole in her shoulder. But Tracer sucks in a breath and gets to her feet, biting back a hiss of pain as she pulls out a pistol.

The footsteps draw closer. _Click, click, click._

She counts to three as she pulls herself up to her feet, then pivots, aiming her pistol--

\--and finds herself staring down the barrel of Amélie Lacroix’s rifle.

“Well, _cherie_ ,” says Amélie, her tone cool and clinical, “I must admit, you’re the last person I expected to see here.”

“Could say the same for you, love,” says Tracer, trying for a grin. The way she’s standing right now, it’s not immediately obvious that her shoulder’s injured, and she tilts her head back and smiles calmly at Amélie, trying to ignore the white-hot flash of pain. “What are the odds, huh?”

“Mm, very narrow,” says Amélie. “Let me guess: you’re out here on Talon’s orders?”

“Not even close,” says Tracer. “I. Might have. Uh. Broken away.”

Amélie stares at her.

Lowers her gun.

Says, “ _Putain._ Let me see your shoulder.”

“It’s fine!” says Tracer. “It’s fine, I’m fine, I fixed it up myself--”

“ _Ma cherie_ ,” says Amélie, “ _vous étes completement débile._ ” She slings the rifle over her shoulder, steps closer, and hooks her fingers in Tracer’s jacket. “ _Mon dieu._ ”

“I have no idea what you just said but I’m pretty sure all of it was not good,” says Tracer, words all in a rush.

“You’d be right,” says Amélie. “Sit _down._ ”

Tracer sits. Amélie follows, stripping off most of Tracer’s clothes from the waist up with a terrifying efficiency, once Tracer shows her how to maneuver around the chronal accelerator, till Tracer’s down to her undershirt and bandage.

“Oh,” says Amélie, quiet.

“I’m fine,” says Tracer, feebly.

“Not really, no,” says Amélie, brows knitting together. She’s--She’s _worried_.

“Blimey, you’re worried for me,” says Tracer.

And _there’s_ that flash of annoyance that Tracer’s most familiar with. “ _Completement débile,_ ” Amélie repeats, but she taps her earpiece and says, “This is Widow. I need Mercy here, _now._ ”)

\--

The next time Amélie comes down to Lena’s cell, she hears somebody else’s voice coming out of it first.

“No! That’s not--Oh, damn, you died. _Again._ ”

“Not _my_ fault you decided ‘casual mode’ was for casuals, love,” Lena’s voice drifts out.

“Not _my_ fault you’re terrible at _Dragon Age_ ,” Hana Song’s voice shoots back, and Amélie resists the urge to roll her eyes up towards the ceiling. Of course Lena would take to the newer recruits like a duck to water.

For god’s sake.

Amélie keys her code in, and the door slides open.

Somehow, Hana has managed to haul in a gaming console and a TV. Amélie briefly entertains the thought of storming up to Winston and yelling some sense into him to get the security on Lena upgraded. She pushes that thought away--Overwatch does not _have_ the resources to upgrade security on anyone, and it’s as Lena said, it’s not as if she can do much harm here. It’s not as if she’s expressed a desire to at all.

Small mercies. Thank god for those.

“What, exactly, is going on here?” she asks instead of storming Winston’s lab like she wants to. Or better yet, walking out of the cell and asking Athena if this is even _allowed_.

She’s pretty sure it’s not.

“The Fade is whooping Lena’s ass,” says Hana, taking a sip of Sprite straight from the bottle. “This is--I think, the fifth time she’s died?”

“The what,” says Amélie.

“Why’d you have to tell her that?” Lena groans, burying her face in her hands. “It’s a game! And I’m losing horribly.”

“I can see it’s a game,” says Amélie. “What possessed you to bring it down _here_?”

“Lucío’s on a mission and I figured it wouldn’t hurt,” says Hana. “There’s not much down here, y’know.”

“That would be because it is meant to _hold people_ ,” says Amélie. “It is not meant to entertain guests.” And even then, Amélie’s left a few books here, because they’re Overwatch, and thus they’re supposed to be more humane than Talon.

At least _now_ , anyway. Amélie still remembers Blackwatch.

Some small part of her, the part that was actually disturbed at how easy it was to put a bullet through someone’s brain, the part that was honestly unsettled by Blackwatch’s dirty tactics, the part that could not understand why Talon would take a young woman and twist her into their perfect weapon, wishes she doesn’t.

“Then what’s all the books for?” asks Lena, bending down to pull Amélie’s battered copy of _Breaking Dawn_ out from under her bed.

_Merde._

“Disposal,” says Amélie, thinking fast. “An old friend left those with me, and she never came to collect them again. I thought it a waste to let them collect dust and mold on my bookshelf.”

“By old friend,” says Lena, grinning now, “do you mean someone with your first name and the last name of Moreau?”

“Wait,” says Hana, sounding incredibly shocked, as if she never thought Amélie would have an interest in anything beyond _sniping people_ , “those were _yours_?”

Amélie plucks the book out of Lena’s hands ( _hey!_ ) and says, “Absolutely not, that is a foul lie, and if they _were_ mine then I was a very, very moody teenager.”

Hana claps a hand over her mouth, but even then Amélie can still hear her laughing at her. Lena doesn’t even do her that small courtesy, instead giving her a great big grin.

The moment Hana looks away, talking about how Lena could probably not die on normal mode, Lena’s grin fades away, into a softer, more hesitant smile.

She mouths, _I liked it too._

Something swoops low in the pit of Amélie’s stomach, somewhere past the rising annoyance.

_Oh,_ she thinks faintly, remembering the last time she felt anything like this, years and years and _years_ ago, _merde._

\--

**AMARI:**  
twilight, lacroix?  
really?

**WIDOW:**  
Where did you find that out?  
No, you know what, I know who told you that.  
Tell Song I am coming for her.

**AMARI:**  
you can tell her that yourself.  
and no, I already suspected those books littered around the base were yours years ago.

**WIDOW:**  
I did not LITTER them around.  
I was very mindful of where I put them.

**AMARI:**  
so this copy of outlander that my daughter has adored since she was thirteen did not first belong to someone named amélie moreau?

**WIDOW:**  
I refuse to dignify that question with an answer.

\--

She starts bringing more books by Lena’s cell. A woman can only stand so much pacing and gaming, after all, and besides, she has more books besides trashy paranormal romance novels. She is a _well-rounded_ person, thank you very much, Hana Song and Ana Amari.

“Wossall this for?”

“Reading,” says Amélie. “It’s when you open a book and look at words.”

Lena rolls her eyes and elbows her. “I know _that_ ,” she says, “I just want to know why you’re giving me all these books.”

“You’re not cleared yet,” says Amélie, “and I would much rather not be annoyed to the point of murder every time I come down here.” She lifts the box of books up. “Thus, books. All of them are secondhand, so some of them aren’t in the best of conditions.”

She expects Lena to say something moronic, to snap out some no doubt witty quip that makes Amélie seriously consider strangling her, but instead Lena takes the box from her in such a reverent fashion that Amélie is actually surprised. Ice-cold fingers brush against hers--of course they’re cold, Talon brought her core body temperature incredibly low.

Lena says, “I--These are all for me?”

“They had to go somewhere,” says Amélie, distinctly aware that she’s wading into uncharted territory here, wondering what the hell she’s doing. Being _concerned_ , she tells herself.

“Thanks,” says Lena, sitting down and opening the box. “Hey, there’s _Star Wars_ in here!”

“My sister’s,” says Amélie.

“Oh, I remember these,” says Lena, pulling out a trilogy. “They were all the rage back when I was a wee brat, I dreamed of being Luke Skywalker when I grew up.” She turns the book over in her hands, smiles a little, and Amélie’s stomach flips over like a gymnast. “I think--I don’t know, I might have read some of them to my brothers once.”

“You have brothers?”

“Yeah, I do,” says Lena, before frowning, her brows knitting together. “Did. Don’t know anymore.” Her brows unknit, and she lets out a slow breath, puts the books aside, and brings her knees up to her chest, clearly more than a little shaken. “I had brothers,” she says, quiet. “I had a family.”

It’s been some time, but Amélie knows the sound of grief when she hears it.

She scoots closer, then settles a hand on Lena’s good shoulder. She pats her once, twice, as gently as possible.

“You’re not very good at this comfort thing, love,” says Lena.

Well, of course not. It’s been a while since she was in the mood to be comforting at all.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” says Amélie, instead of doing the sensible thing and just backing off.

Lena hesitates, then says, “Keep going. Please.”


End file.
